John walked behind Vriska in silence. He just couldn't think of anything to say or ask. All of the events that transpired just thirty minutes ago were just too shocking for him to wrap his mind around. He kept telling himself that it was impossible, that it was just a dream and he really needed to wake up. But, he didn't know what to believe anymore. The fight was a blur in his mind, but what happened after was clear as day.

Thirty Minutes Ago

Vriska had congratulated him and called him the "Heir of Breath" for some reason, but he was too stunned by the results of her end of the battle. She took down a monster who was more than twice her height! It was lying in a growing pool of its own blood out on the road, executed like it was nothing more than a nuisance. Vriska didn't even have a scratch on her.

After that, the corpses of the ogre and the imps started to glow, and suddenly exploded! However, what came out wasn't organs or blood; it was a bunch of blue and purple things shaped like the Fruit Gushers candy, and some black teardrops that somehow stayed solid. John had slowly approached and touched one of them, and it disappeared. The body of the imp it came from was gone, but it still left a stain.

"Don't worry," Vriska called out, causing him to turn and face her. "It's just grist. You touch it and it gets stored away for you." That's all she had to say before she walked out to collect the grist expelled by her kill.

John didn't have the will to press for more answers and proceeded with gathering all of the grist in the wrecked diner. It was probably useful in some way. Some of it had been launched onto tables or piles of rubble. It wasn't until he went to retrieve some from behind the counter that he remembered Casey.

She was leaning against a cabinet door, broken coffee pot still in hand and still chewing her blue gum. If she had been wearing longer pants instead of denim shorts that went down to her knees, they would've been torn up. As it was, she had a bloody bite mark around her left leg and some deep scratches on the other. Her arms were covered in cuts and bruises, and her eyes told John that it all hurt like hell.

Before anything else, he asked her if she had a first-aid kit. He was told where it was, and in no time found it and was kneeling next to her. After disinfecting all of her wounds and bandaging up her legs, he tried to help her stand. When that proved to be a problem, he opted to carry her on his back. He wouldn't take no for an answer. She was surprisingly light, but that could be attributed to either her being a bit short or him being stronger than he thought he was. With her clinging to him like a child, he walked back around the bar and over to where Vriska was waiting patiently.

"So, what do we do now?" he inquired.

"I'm glad you asked!" she replied, turned her head to look at him. "We're going to- uh, John?"

"What?"

"Why are you carrying a Consort on your back?"

"Well, I wasn't just going to leave her to die!"

"Okaaaaaaaay, whatever. You can take the dead weight with you if you want. Aaaaaaaanyway, you just have to follow me and not worry about the destination. That okay with you?"

"Sure," he replied as she spun on her heel and started down the sidewalk.

The Present

His thoughts were disrupted when he heard Casey's voice talking to him. "I'm sorry, what? I was kinda spacing out," he said.

She blew a bubble, popped it, and giggled. "Oh, it's okay. I was just thanking you for saving me from those imps."

"You're welcome, I guess. To be honest, I had no idea what I was doing, or if I would actually win that fight. The alien girl deserves most of the credit."

"You say that as if you've never seen a troll before," she said, shifting her arms for the hundredth time to keep from sliding down his back.

"Is that what she is?" John questioned. "Never heard of a troll who looked like a human with a skin condition and horns."

She leaned her head forward over his shoulder in an attempt to judge his sincerity. He didn't look like he was lying. "You really do have amnesia, don't you?"

"Yeah," he responded, seeming slightly more cheerful than he should have. "Nothing in my head but the basics. But, I'm confident that I'll remember something, eventually. Anyway, so you said she's a troll. Are they common in this city?"

She shook her head. "Not really. The only ones I've heard of are in the Street Tier gang. Same goes for humans and the two cherubs."

John stopped for a second to give her a puzzled look. "Wait, what do you mean? Are you saying you're not human?"

"This isn't the time to stop and enjoy the scenery, Egdork," Vriska shouted from a few yards away. "Get your ass moving or I'll come back there and make you move!"

He could tell she was serious, so he jogged to catch up with her again. Meanwhile, Casey was replying to his question. "No, not completely," she explained. "I'm a Consort. We're the people who live in the many districts of Sburb, excluding Prospit, Derse, and Skaia. I may look fully human, but I'm actually one-quarter salamander. Consorts of the same species tend to live in the same districts."

Well, that was interesting. At least it explained why Vriska kept calling her a consort. With his confusion slowly receding, John's state of mind progressed from 'what the hell is going on here?' to 'I sort of know some stuff, but a squirrel could probably understand more.'

"That's really awesome!" he exclaimed, adjusting his hold on her bandaged legs and receiving a low hiss of pain from her. "So, do you have any, like, special powers or anything like that?"

"Not that I know of," she said before Vriska stopped in front of them.

She shushed them before either could ask why. They had been slipping through a back alley, kind of like the one John had woken up in, and were at the other end where it met another street. She made him duck behind a few garbage cans, holding his head down and only letting him peek through the crack between them. He felt the ground start to shake, giant vibrations that were short yet violent. Before long, a monster appeared from the left. It was easily three times the size of the ogre from before, with orange skin and one huge eye in the middle of its forehead. Thankfully, that eye wasn't looking at them.

The three of them stayed hidden until the thunderous footsteps had faded into the distance. Vriska motioned for John to get back up and continued out into the road, heading in the opposite direction of the giant.

"What was that?" John asked Casey, who was trembling.

"I, um, think it was a Giclopse," she whispered.

"Okay, then. If it's not too much to ask, are there any other monsters around here besides the ones I've seen?"

She had to think about that for a few minutes. "Well, before tonight, I'd only caught glimpses of imps and ogres. From what I've heard, there are liches, basilisks, and also minions of Typheus himself running around here at night. I usually don't stray far from school, home, and the diner. It looks like we may be going deeper into the dangerous part of Lowas."

"Bingo," Vriska said. "You hit that one right on the nose there, consort. From here until our destination, there will be maaaaaaaany more monsters getting in our way. On my own, I would have no trouble what-so-ever with taking them out. But, I've got you two weaklings here with me, so we'll have to go about this as sneakily as possible."

She wasn't kidding. They spent the next two hours slinking between building and taking cover behind everything ranging from a discarded mattress to heaps of garbage. The creatures they avoided made Casey bury her face in John's neck, and he wished he could do the same. They came in a variety of sizes and colors, but they all had the same razor-sharp teeth and white eyes. They intrigued him just as much as they inspired fear, but he couldn't look at them for long enough or they would spot him.

The buildings around them also changed. They were now beat-up structures, complete with broken, boarded up windows and dilapidated brickwork. Some had minor damages, while others were missing large chunks or even entire walls. Vriska led John through through these holes as shortcuts, sometimes stopoping to grab things and put them in her belt pockets.

They ended up inside a building that looked just like the rest. The only difference was that the back wall was tagged with a graffiti spirograph. It was blue and stood out against the faded bricks. There was a door next to it, which Vriska silently opened and ushered John and Casey through. The inside was baren, save for a collapsed pile of rubble blocking where the front door should've been, and a circular platform in the center of the living room. The platform had a design on it made of a bunch of overlapping triangles and gently hummed.

"Here we are," Vriska stated, gesturing to the platform. "All that's left is for you to step on the transportalizer."

John looked at it, then back at her. "Is it safe?" he asked.

"Uuuuuuuugh! Yes, it is! Now get on it. Hurry up. We're already late as it is."

He hesitantly shuffled toward the device, looking over his shoulder at Casey to get her opinion. She nodded, so he quickly hopped up onto the machine. Just two seconds after his feet were in place, he disappeared in a flash of white light.